I've been scratchbuilding the first four yard structures at Orbisonia. I've used Northeastern batten and scribed wood overlaid on a foamcore shell. Some windows and the corrugated roof are Clever Models paper products. Paper glued to foamcore works out great.

The first structure is the car shops.

The boiler and coal bin were next.

I am designing my version of the AC&Y yard at Brittain. It is a curved yard and so shall mine be. A recent article in the dead tree publication states 48" minimum radius for relaible coupling/uncoupling in a curved yard. I have space for a much larger radius but want to emphasize curved appearance for effect. Hence do not want to unnecessarily increase the radius. HO, 60's-70's era freight on the rails, no passenger, no steam, track centerline spacing flexible.

Looks like Walthers is retiring the Amfleet 1 series, hope this means an updated version soon!

I own several Atlas S1/S2 switchers and I'm gathering information about installing a decoders/sound decoders in them.  I've found some information on-line but much of it is sketchy and seems a bit out-dated.

Soundtraxx recommends using their AT-1000 sound decoder.  However, this is an RTR decoder and all installs I've read about so far use wired decoders and a RTR decoder seems like it wouldn't fit.